In dishwashers, items to be washed are held in at least one dish rack and acted upon by wash water from below and/or above. The wash water is supplied to the items to be washed, for example, via a rotatable spray arm mounted beneath the dish rack. The spray arm is supplied with wash water by a circulating pump, which circulates the wash water within the dishwasher.
These prior art rotating nozzle arms produce so-called spray shadows, so that, especially in these regions, the spray jets issuing from the spray arm do not always effectively reach the items to be washed. Such a spray shadow occurs especially in the region of a two-level cup support (see, for example, DE 102004022024.7), the upper cup support being pivotably mounted in the dish rack. It is then desirable to provide special additional spray means to account for these regions, and also for the different shapes of the items to be washed, in order to thereby achieve effective cleaning and/or to allow the washing agent to be used in a controlled manner.
German document DE 198 47 151, for example, describes a dishwasher rack having pipes disposed at the bottom thereof, said pipes being provided with pivotably mounted short tubular members. In this type of design, in particular, these short tubular members are pivotably mounted to the pipes at the bottom of the rack in such a manner that when they are brought to their operative position by a simple pivoting movement, they thereby enable the supply of washing agent, thus allowing the washing agent to be used in a controlled manner.
This known prior art dish rack having so-called special washing zones has the disadvantage that the pipe ends project into the rack space, which makes it more difficult to move cups or glasses in the region of the rack. Moreover, using these special washing zones, only a very limited region in the rack is supplied with or covered by wash water.
French document FR 1.571.450 describes another prior art variant, where a so-called additional spray means is used in addition to a rotating spray arm, said additional spray means exerting its function especially in the upper rack. There, an additional arm is provided on the feed tube of the upper rack, said additional arm ensuring, in particular, that the items to be washed are intensively sprayed from above. This additional spray means still has disadvantages, because it does not act on the items to be washed from below as a so-called additional intensive washing zone.